Pink Dosa with Green Chutney

Few years back Loksatta used to publish series of articles on food. I had kept some paper cuttings of same.Now after all these years,these cuttings are helping me in planning for some delicious meals. I found an interesting breakfast receipe which is a bit different than usual dosa receipes. This is a "Pink Dosa" prepared with masoor dal. All you need is 1 cup masoor daal, 1/2 cup urad daal, less than 1/4 cup rice. Soak all ingredients together for 6-8 hours. Grind to smooth paste and let it ferment for 5-6 hrs. When you are preparing dosa add some flavourings like finely chopped onions, green chillies, corriander leaves, jeera/cumin seeds and ofcourse salt. With this batter prepare dosa like any normal dosa.

I served the dosa with green pudina chutney. This chutney was prepared by Sudha. Sudha is my son's caretaker and luckily she is good at cooking as well as in other household work.

For pudina chutney, you need 1 bunch of pudina leaves and 1/2 bunch of corriander leaves cleaned and pat dried.In a pan add 1tbsp oil. Fry pudina leaves, 1 medium size onion, 3-4 green chillies in the oil. In mixie pot add 4-5tbsp grated coconut, fried pudina leaves, onion, green chillies, 1tbsp tamarind pulp, salt to taste, 1tsp jeera/cumin seeds with little bit of water and grind till you have smooth chutney paste. You can serve this chutney with any dosa/dhirade/peetha or even apply on bread slices.

Nadia chakuli/ Coconut dosa

Before marriage I used to think dosa is mainly south indian breakfast. But different versions of dosas are available across  India, like Maharashtrian Dhirade or Oriya style peetha/chakuli. This dosa is prepared with coconut and rice. So don't keep batter for too long. The ingredients are very simple. Soak 2 cup rice for 5-6 hours. Separately soak 1/4 cup urad daal for same time. Grind rice and urad dal separately into smooth paste. Mix both tastes together. then add 1-1.5 cups of grated coconut and grind for couple of minutes. Keep it in fridge for later use or you can use it immediately. We generally have this dosa with potato fry. But sambhar or any chutney will also work as side dish.

Perfect weekend breakfast: Onion Dosa with Daal chutany

After living in B'lore for so long, we like to have dosas for breakfast. Everyday it is slightly time consuming to prepare dosas even if batter is ready. So we generally make dosa over weekend. Dosa is very easy to make and you can have it for breakfast, dinner anytime. Only thing you need to do right is timing. If you want to have dosa for Saturday morning breakfast, then you've to soak rice and daal on Friday morning and grind same on Friday night.
So here's recipe for Onion Dosa with daal chutney

Ingredients:
Dosa batter
- 4 Cups of Rice.Generally thick grain rice is used, but you can use any type of rice.
- 1 cup of urad daal.
- Salt to taste
Toppings
- 1 large onion chopped
- 7-8 green chillies
- 1 small carrot grated. (Per B'lore dosa recipe, if you like).
For Daal Chutney
- 1 small cup of Chana daal
- 1 Cup curd
- 3-4 red chillies
- 2-3 green chillies
- 1 tbl spoon cumin seeds
- 1 tbl spoon paanch fodan
- salt to taste

Dosa receipe
1. Soak rice and daal separately for 8-10 hrs. Make sure you wash rice and daal very thoroughly till the washing water is almost clear.
2. After required soaking, first grind the daal till batter is very smooth. One simple taste to check that is in small bowlful of water drop small ball of batter. If it riser to water surface immediately, then batter is perfect.
3. Once daal is grinded, grind rice again into smooth paste.
4. Now mix daal and rice batter together. Add pinch of salt. Leave it overnight to ferment. It will take 7-8 hrs to rise.
5. Now when starting to prepare dosa, start heating non-stick tawa on high flame. Don't put oil initially as you'll not be able to spread batter properly.
6. For onion dosa, batter should not be very thin. Put 2 laddleful of batter on tawa and spread it. Immediately put chooped onion and chilli and pat it slightly over batter. Put 1tbl sp oil around dosa. Cook it for 3-4 min.After one side is browned, turn dosa to cook side with onions. Remove from tawa,once onions are slightly darkened.

Chutney
1. Add 2 tbl sp of oil in frying pan. Once oil is headed, add paanch fotan and red chillies and let it splutter. Add chana daal (thoroughly washed)and fry till its golden brown.
2. Soak fried daal for 15-20 min, then grind it roughly with some salt.
3. Now prepare tadka(heat oil, add some green chillies, cummin seeds)and pour it over grounded daal.
3. Later add curd to complete preparation.